August 1944 and the American POWs of Japan

Saipan

75 years ago, August 1944, the the end of WWII in the Pacific was in sight.

Whereas in Europe there was June's D-Day at Normandy, July in the Pacific saw a series of equally dramatic D-Days. The campaigns to capture the Mariana Islands–Saipan, Tinian and Guam–would cut off Japan from its resource-rich southern empire and clear the way for further advances to Tokyo. At Saipan and Tinian, the islands nearest to Japan, U.S. forces could establish crucial air bases from which the U.S. Army’s new long-range B-29 Superfortress bombers could inflict punishing strikes on Japan’s Home Islands ahead of an Allied invasion. Guam was personal. On December 10, 1941, it was the first U.S. territory to fall to Japan.

The Marines stormed ashore on Saipan on June 15, 1944 planning for a 3-day fight. Japanese forces proved greater and more ferocious than anticipated. U.S. bombing of the island had been ineffective. The bitter and bloody battle, the first conducted around a substantial civilian population, lasted three weeks through July 9. How the U.S. finally won, became the template for the rest of the war in the Pacific.

The first American POWs on Saipan were from a B-24 Liberator that crashed into the waters near Saipan on May 29, 1944. Piloted by Captain Loren Arthur Stoddard (CA), the 10-man crew was on a photo reconnaissance mission leading up to the American invasion of the island. Six of the men died on impact. Four survived in a raft for four days that drifted towards Saipan. On June 2, the men were picked up by a Japanese patrol, questioned for four days then flown to Japan where they were taken to the Ofuna Naval Interrogation Center in Kamakura, the infamous torture facility. Paralyzed from the waist down, Bombardier 1st Lt. Ernest Ferdinan Peschau, Jr. (NC) died en-route from Saipan on June 8th. Captain Stoddard, Co-Pilot 2nd Lt. Peter Hryskanich (NY), and Radio TSgt Lincoln S. Manierre (CT) survived their ordeal.

suicide cliff

The conclusion of the battle on Saipan made a lasting impression on American war planners. At dawn on July 7, the Japanese launched a gyokusai attack. (roughly translated as broken jewels, a reference to the destruction of an entire Japanese unit, a suicide attack that is sometimes called a banzai attack) The exact number of attackers will never be known, but it is estimated that more than 4,000 Japanese participated in this last-ditch assault on the American forces. A dozen or so Japanese soldiers carrying red flags led the way. Behind them came the remaining able-bodied Japanese soldiers. Behind that group of 3,000 men were the wounded, many on crutches and unable to carry a gun. Along with the wounded were the civilians of Saipan, carrying bamboo spears. The battle lasted 15 hours, leaving 650 American soldiers dead or wounded, and 4,300 Japanese killed.

As the fighting on Saipan continued, Japanese citizens headed to the Northern tip of the island. There they chose two specific areas, known today as Banzai Cliff and Suicide Cliff, and jumped to their deaths as families. The majority of the suicides happened in the last four days of fighting, between July 8th and July 12th.

By the end of the fighting, nearly 30,000 Japanese soldiers were dead, 5,000 by their own hands, including the island's Commander General Gen. Yoshitsugu Saito , who was found dead in a cave alongside Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the Naval commander who lead the Japanese carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. Only 921 prisoners were captured. Of the 25,000 Japanese civilians on Saipan, 22,000 were dead as well, almost all of them having taken their own lives. Total casualties for the Marines and soldiers who fought on Saipan amounted to 786 officers and 13,438 enlisted men killed, wounded or missing in action.

Saipan showed American war planners that there were long, hard battles ahead against an enemy determined not to surrender, but to ensure as many casualties, military and civilian, as possible.in their defeat. Saipan became the measure for a future battles, especially in planning for the invasion of Japan. The battle for Japan was expected to look much like the battle for Saipan: large ground forces, air support, a civilian population, rugged terrain, a suicidal defense to the last man. The “Saipan Ratio” was developed to determine how the future battle would unfold. For example, on Saipan the Americans lost four soldiers for every seven Japanese. Planners figured there were roughly 3.5 million enemy soldiers waiting for them on Japan. As they applied the Saipan Ratio of 4:7 to the invasion of Japan, they estimated American casualties would be roughly 2 million, 500,000 of which would be killed and the rest wounded. This assumed a battle lasting roughly two months. If it dragged on, casualties would go up from there.

Another lesson of Saipan, was that America's African American Marines were more than ready and able for battle. Saipan was the first use of the Montford Point Marines in combat during World War II. First used to unload food and ammunition from landing vehicles and deliver the supplies under fire to troops on Saipan's beach, they were soon in combat fighting alongside the white Marines. The Montford Point Marines were awarded the Congressional Gold medal in 2011 in recognition of their personal sacrifice and service to their country during World War II.

MacArthur, Roosevelt, Nimitz

The loss of Saipan stunned the political establishment in Tokyo. Many of Saipan’s citizens were Japanese, and the loss of Saipan marked the first defeat in Japanese territory that had not been added during Japan’s aggressive expansion by invasion in 1941 and 1942. Worse still, General Hideki Tojo, Japan’s wartime prime minister, had publicly promised that the United States would never take Saipan. He and his cabinet, which included Kishi (Abe's grandfather) was forced to resign barely a week after the U.S. conquest of the island, July 18th.

After Saipan, American troops turned toward Guam and Tinian. On July 8th, cruisers and destroyers of Task Group 53.18, commanded by Rear Adm. Charles Turner Joy, began daily bombardment operations on Japanese defenses in Guam. Battleships joined the bombardment group on July 14. U.S. Marines and soldiers made amphibious landings on July 21. Guam was secured August 10. The assault on Tinian began July 24 and formal fighting ended by August 1.

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And not to be forgotten, on July 13, 1944, after being adrift in the Pacific for 43 day when his B-24, Green Hornet, crashed during a rescue mission, California Olympian and Airman Louis Zamperini (CA) is captured by the Imperial Japan Navy near the Kwajalein Atoll known as “Execution Island.” He is transported to Kwajalein after three days. In his cell he discovers carved on the wall “Nine Marines marooned on Makin Island, August 18, 1942,” followed by their names). The Marines, he learned, had been executed. He was soon taken to Japan and the Ofuna Naval Interrogation Center in Kamakura,

In the midst of these battles, July 26-27 , the Pacific Strategy Conference was held in Hawaii. President Roosevelt met with Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur at Pearl Harbor to decide the next priority of the war in the Pacific: Formosa or the Philippines. On the island, Roosevelt witnessed exercises in preparation of the invasion of Japan.

Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’ unscreened in Japan amid resentment

The true-life story of an American POW has been attacked as ‘anti-Japanese’

Angelina Jolie arrives to the world premiere of “Unbroken” in Sydney, Australia last November. Photograph: KHAP/GG/GC ImagesAdd caption

by David McNeill
First published in The Irish Times, May 9, 2015

In Unbroken, a 2014 war movie directed by Angelina Jolie, American prisoner of war Louis Zamperini is sent to a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the sleepy coastal town of Naoetsu. Starved and beaten by a sadistic guard, he barely survives.

The ordeal was the nadir of an extraordinary life. A distance runner, Zamperini qualified for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and met Adolf Hitler.

Before being captured by Japanese soldiers, he survived 47 days adrift on a raft in the Pacific. When the second World War ended, he struggled with alcoholism, depression and an obsession with revenge. His says his life rebounded only when he embraced Christianity and publicly forgave his captors.

Zamperini’s story, with its stirring American motifs of individual bravery, triumph and redemption, was turned into a bestselling book in 2010 and translated into 30 languages. Since it opened last year, Unbroken has been screened around the world. Everywhere, it seems, but Japan.

The film, and the translation of the book, was stopped in its tracks by a campaign in the right-wing media, amplified by online ranting that branded it “anti-Japanese”. Toho-Towa, the Japanese distributor for Universal Studios, has yet to announce a release date.

Universal itself has kept its distance from the controversy, except to deny any intention of “spreading a political message” through the film, says Duncan Clark, the studio’s president. Anything to do with the history of the second World War is political in Japan, in particular this year – the 70th anniversary of the nation’s surrender in August 1945.

Prime minister Shinzo Abe belongs to a political tradition that rejects much of the accepted narrative on the war. Education minister Hakubun Shimomura fired the latest salvo from that tradition last month when he announced stricter control over school history textbooks.

Mr Abe’s views were under the global spotlight last week during an eight-day visit to Washington. On April 29th, he became the first Japanese leader to address a joint session of Congress in a speech that expressed remorse for the war but stopped short of an apology.

Japan has produced much of the top scholarship on the war, critical or otherwise, and its movie studios have produced a string of anti-war classics. American-made movies showing mistreatment of POWs, notably Bridge on the River Kwai, have been widely seen in the country.

Official amnesia

But reflection, never easy, has long battled official amnesia. That amnesia is accelerating, says Mindy Kotler, director of the Washington-based think tank Asia Policy Point. “The Abe administration has walked back on every aspect of accountability for the war,” she says.

Kotler says the government has created an atmosphere of “misinformation and self-censorship” at home and sent diplomats out across the world to object to war memorials and complain to history professors and journalists.

In one notorious incident last year, Japanese officials accused Germany’s largest business newspaper of carrying pro-Chinese propaganda against Japan. “There is a clear shift taking place under the leadership of Mr Abe,” wrote the newspaper’s correspondent Carsten Germis. “A move by the right to whitewash history.”

Many ordinary Japanese have fought the retreat from the past. In Naoetsu, a group of locals, working with the families of former Australian POWs, created one of the few domestic memorials to Japan’s wartime victims. A small park marks the spot where the camp once stood.

About 60 Australians died from disease and mistreatment at the camp from 1942-45. When the war ended, eight guards were tried and executed, more than any other POW camp in Japan. Zamperini’s tormentor, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, fled and was never brought to justice. He later became a successful businessman.

The inmates included Irish man Thomas Fanahan Finn, who left Mitchelstown, Co Cork, aged 19 and enlisted with the Manchester Regiment. Towards the end of the war he was transported to Japan in “terrible, vile conditions” for compulsory labour at the Naoetsu camp, says his daughter Kit Clay.

But many of the people who fought to have the park built in 1995 have passed away. Around the town, few seem even aware of the camp or that it has been immortalised by Hollywood. The local library doesn’t have a single record of Zamperini.

“I don’t think people care about something that happened so long ago,” says Yukiko Ishida, who runs a coffee shop less than a kilometre from where the camp once stood.

Shared interpretations

Other countries struggle over how to remember the bloody 20th century, points out Shin Kawashima, a specialist in diplomatic history at the University of Tokyo. But in Asia, nationalism appears to be fuelling a retreat from attempts at shared interpretations of the past.

South Korea has responded to Japan’s textbook changes by announcing that schoolteachers will be given dedicated training on the history of Japan’s wartime military brothels. In China, primary and secondary schools already extensively study Japanese invasions of the 1930s and 1940s; a compulsory text on the 1937 Nanjing massacre was adopted this year for use in all its classrooms.

Unbroken should resonate beyond national borders because its central character embraced reconciliation, say those who know the story. Zamperini, who died last year, aged 97, later went to Japan to meet his captors and even requested a meeting with Watanabe, who refused. Zamperini was one of 30,000 POWs in Japan; 10 per cent died in the country, says Kinue Tokudome, executive director of the US-Japan Dialogue on POWs. “People don’t know that history,” she laments. “They must have seen these emaciated Caucasians in the countryside. How could they not remember and talk about it?”

Tokudome says there is still some space in Japan to discuss the uncomfortable past. She points to a new English-language textbook for secondary school children that recounts the tale of another POW.

But like many observers, she worries that this space may be closing. “I’m pleased that at least we now have this one vehicle to reach out to young Japanese people,” she says.

“Otherwise, they have very few opportunities to learn about the history that took place in their country.”

And what of the fate of the torturers

Award-winning newsman Bob Simon died this past National Foundation Day, Japan's holiday to remember its Empire and the establishment of the Imperial family. One of his most inspiring stories for 60 Minutes was on Louis Zamperini. It won an Emmy.

For the segment, Simon went to Japan to track down Mitsuhiro WATANABE the torturer of Zamperini and hundreds of others who passed through the Omori and Naoetsu POW camps where Watanabe was a psychotic guard.

Simon found him. The interview is above. Zamperini had wanted to meet Watanabe and Simon want to film the encounter. Watanabe, an unrepentant former Imperial Army captain and now insurance salesman, refused.

Watanabe had escaped arrest by going into hiding during the American Occupation of Japan. He escaped prosecution when Washington suspended the arrest warrants of suspected war criminals after the San Francisco Peace Treaty went into effect on April 1, 1952.  With this, Watanabe was free to emerge from hiding and become a typical Japanese salaryman--an insurance salesman to be exact.

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Watanabe severely beat and psychologically tortured Zamperini and was reviled among the other POWs, American and Allied. Yet, frankly and sadly, Watanabe was not the exception. Imperial Japan's fascist state had forged beasts from simple peasants and school boys.

Legendary war historian Max Hastings wrote in Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 about the shocking Japanese treatment of POWs that has horrified and “fascinated” Westerners ever since. He noted that the POW’s “liberators were stunned by the stories they heard: of starvation and rampant disease; of men worked to death in their thousands, tortured or beheaded for small infractions of discipline.” He said that “It seemed incomprehensible that a nation with pretensions to civilisation could have defied every principle of humanity and the supposed rules of war.”

US National Archives shares records behind UNBROKEN

National Archives Meets Hollywood: Shares Records Behind UNBROKEN!

Free screening, document display, and article highlight National Archives’ connection

Washington, DC

Special free screening of UNBROKEN
Tuesday, February 10, at 7 PM, William G. McGowan Theater

Join us for a free screening of the film UNBROKEN (2014; 137 minutes; trailer), based on the 2010 book by Laura Hillenbrand, UNBROKEN: A World War II Story of Survival Resilience and Redemption. The film, a World War II action drama, was produced and directed by Angelina Jolie and stars Jack O'Connell, Takamasa Ishihara, and Domhnall Gleeson. Presented in partnership with NBCUniversal and in conjunction with the UNBROKEN Featured Document display, February 5 through March 4, 2015.

Register online or call 202-357-6814. Theater doors will open 45 minutes prior to start time. Walk-ins without reservations will be admitted 15 minutes prior to start time, depending on available seats. Attendees should use the Special Event entrance on Constitution Avenue and 7th Street, NW.

UNBROKEN Featured Document Display*
February 5 through March 4, 2015, National Archives East Rotunda Gallery

The National Archives welcomes UNBROKEN with a special display of Olympian Louis "Louie" Zamperini’s wartime service records and his Purple Heart, which he gave to UNBROKEN author Laura Hillenbrand. The display is free and open to the public at the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC, on Constitution Avenue at 9th Street, NW.

On May 27, 1943, Army Air Force bombardier Louis “Louie” Zamperini’s B-24 airplane crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Louie survived 47 days at sea, only to be taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese. His fate unknown, Louie was declared dead a year and a day after his plane went down. His family received a condolence letter from President Franklin Roosevelt and a Purple Heart medal for “wounds that resulted in his death.” Against all odds, Zamperini survived and was liberated at the end of the war. The National Archives Museum’s “Featured Documents” exhibit is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation.

Display highlights include:

-Letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Zamperini Family after Louis was mistakenly declared deceased, May 28, 1944.* National Archives at St. Louis
-Certificate awarding the Purple Heart medal to Louis Silvie Zamperini after he was mistakenly declared deceased, October 12, 1944.* National Archives at St. Louis
-Purple Heart medal awarded to Louis Silvie Zamperini, ca. 1944. Courtesy of Laura Hillenbrand, author "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption," who received it as a gift from Louis Zamperini.

Online resources: Zamperini’s Paper Trail at the National Archives
The National Archives holds hundreds of millions of records created or received by the U.S. Government during World War II, including the original records of hero Louis Zamperini. See:
Air Crew Report on the disappearance of the Green Hornet, Zamperini's B-24 plane.
Smithsonian.com “Deep Dive” on the Air Crew Report that includes an interview with archivist Eric VanSlander.
National Archives blog post “Louis Zamperini: The Story of a True American Hero.”

The East Rotunda Gallery and William G. McGowan Theater are located in the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC. Metro accessible on Yellow or Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial station. To verify the date and times of the programs, call the National Archives Public Programs Line at: 202-357-5000, or view the Calendar of Events online.

* Please note: a July 12, 1973, fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO, destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF) of Army and Air Force service members, including Zamperini’s file. In reconstructing his service record, official copies of these original records were incorporated into Zamperini’s OMPF by the National Archives.

More Information
Directions
Visitor's Guide
William G. McGowan Theater
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Sourcing Japanese Denier History

Denying cannibalism by Japanese troops is a popular trope used by Japan's Rightwingers to discredit the book and film Unbroken. The net-uyoku have accused the author of Unbroken of spreading a lie about Japanese having a “custom” of cannibalism. They proudly declare that Japan has no "food culture" of cannibalism, thus it is simply untrue that Imperial Japanese soldiers and sailors consumed POWs out of hunger or triumph. This denial is at the heart of the online petition to ban the movie in Japan. However, neither the book nor the movie depict acts of cannibalism.

Unbroken is a biography of Olympian and former American POW of Japan Louis Zamperini. The author, Laura Hillenbrand, tries to capture in one paragraph (p 315), the litany of abuses heaped upon those captured by the Japanese. One clause in one sentence refers to "eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism." Nowhere else is this mentioned.

The book has not been translated into Japanese nor has the film been shown in Japan. Thus, what is the source of this misperception?

It seems that it can be traced to an one-word mistranslation in a book review of Unbroken in Wedge, a conservative magazine published by a subsidiary of JR Central [see below]. The honorary chairman of JR Central is Yoshiyuki Kasai and the then-adviser to the magazine and JR Central was Tomohiko Taniguchi. Kasai is a confidante of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and lead promoter of hi-speed rail in the United States. Taniguchi is now in charge of the Abe government's international public relations. 

Neither man has moved to clear up this misunderstanding. Both are deeply concerned with Japan's global public image. The result is that the campaign  against Unbroken is intensifying and in December a book was published embellishing the false notion that Unbroken is part of a campaign to dishonor Japan. This view is part of a greater ideology that the war crimes trials were based of falsified information and the product of victor's justice.

As many readers of this blog know, JR Central now owns the railcar manufacturer Nippon Sharyo, a company that used American and Allied POWs as slave labor at its factory in Narumi. A founder of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, Sam Moody, was tortured at the camp. JR Central is vying for high speed rail contracts in Texas and the East Coast. Nippon Sharyo will be part of these bids as well as bids by JR East for this year's high speed rail contracts in California.

The reports of cannibalism are true. Officers were prosecuted in war crimes trials and hanged. Imperial Japan's excessive abuse of its military and civilian prisoners is also true.

The following, for scholarly understanding and analysis, is a provisional, annotated translation of the Wedge article that propagated the campaign against Unbroken.

Very Popular Book In U.S.A. Stirs-up Anti-Japan Feelings
-- Japanese Military's Abuse of POWs, Why Bring It Up Now?

Wedge Magazine, February 20, 2011
By Soichiro MORIKAWA -- Journalist who has experience of living in New York during the time of IT Bubble
Link: 反日感情をあおる本が米国で大人気

* * * * * * * * * *
COLUMN: What best-seller books are being read in America? Learn about trends/signs of the times. You think you know, but may not really know, the true state of affairs in America -- and this is essential for thinking about Japan.
* * * * * * * * * *

"UNBROKEN", by Laura Hillenbrand, published by Random House. $27.00

A non-fiction book which describes the true story, in great detail, how a Japanese soldier abused a U.S. POW during World War II. It is unmistakably a book which will certainly heighten anti-Japanese feelings in America, and is being widely-read in the U.S. It is a special category book listed in the New York Times weekly non-fiction bestseller list, and has ranked in the top-five for thirteen-straight weeks. Most recently it dropped to number two, but for six weeks before that it was at the top of the list.

-- JAPANESE MILITARY'S ABUSE OF POWS

Louis Zamperini, is currently a healthy 93-year-old American man of Italian ancestry. The book follows/describes the misfortunes he experienced during his lifetime -- in particular how he had to deal with inhumane treatment as a POW held by the Imperial Japanese military.

As a young 19-year-old middle-distance runner, he raced in the 1936 Berlin Olympics as part of the U.S.A.'s team. He did not win a medal, but his hard-running style drew the attention of Adolf Hitler, who was watching from the stands -- and there is an anecdote that later on,

Hitler shook Zamperini's hand.

Thereafter, Zamperini continued to train as a runner, hoping to compete in teh 1940 Olympics, which were schedule to be held in Tokyo -- but due to the Japan-China War, those games were postponed, and he joined the U.S. Army Air Force. However, bad luck later struck when his aircraft developed engine trouble and it crashed. He eventually drifted ashore on Kwajalein Island, located in the Marshall Islands, about 3,900 KM southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.

That was when Zamperini became a POW of the Japanese military, in a place which was called "Execution Island." Zamperini was not executed, once the Japanese military realized he was an Olympic athlete, and he was sent bakc to the mainland Japan.

After that, we had to survive being a POW, who was moved from place-to-place in camps at Ofuna, Omori, and Naoetsu, and eventually returned alive to America in August 1945. The book describes, in a cool/factual style, the numerous cases/examples of maltreatment Zamperini received while in the POW camps -- and, conversely, this really causes the image of the cruel Japanese soldiers to vividly emerge.

In particular, the most involved/powerful descriptions of abuse and cruelty are those which cover the actions of Japanese Corporal Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who came to be called "The Bird." The book calls Watanabe a sadist, who seemed to derive sexual pleasure feelings from punishing/tormenting the POWs. For example, the following is one example of innumerable POW-abuse scenes which
are written in the book:

--"THE BIRD," SADISTIC WATANABE

"The Bird swung the belt backward, with the buckle on the loose end, and then whipped it around himself and forward, as if he were performing a hammer throw. The buckle rammed into Louie’s left temple and ear. Louie felt as if he had been shot in the head. Though he had resolved never to let the Bird knock him down, the power of blow, and the explosive pain that followed, overawed everything in him. His legs seemed to liquefy, and he went down. The room spun." (page 251)

Corporal Watanabe, aka "The Bird", made Zamperini his personal enemy, and almost every day he would beat Zamperini, and would also prevent him from receiving adequate amounts of food. The book also states that Japanese soldiers would seize food from International Red Cross relief packages, and prevent distribution of such food to the POWs.

The book further describes, using statistical information, to show that Japan's treatment of POWs was clearly much worse and cruel than Nazi Germany.

"In its rampage over the east, Japan had brought atrocity and death on a scale that staggers the imagination. In the midst of it were the prisoners of war. Japan held some 132,000 POWs from America, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Holland, and Australia. Of those, nearly 36,000 died, more than one in every four. Americans fared particularly badly; of the 34,648 Americans held by Japan, 12,935? more than 37 percent?died. By comparison, only 1 percent of Americans held by the Nazis and Italians died." (pages 314-315)

POWs were subjected to especially cruel treatment, supposedly, as described in the following passage...

"Thousands of other POWs were beaten, burned, stabbed, or clubbed to death, shot, beheaded, killed during medical experiments, or eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism. And as a result of being fed grossly inadequate and befouled food and water, thousands more died of starvation and easily preventable diseases." (page 315)

** TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Here Mr. Morikawa (mis)translated the phrase "ritual acts of cannibalism" as hito-kui fushu de-- he used the word fushu for "ritual," but,  fushu's meaning is "customary, or common practice -- which does not really match the nuance of ritual.**

The book then tries to explain why the Japanese military's abuse of POWs occurred so routinely/commonly. As is shown in the following quote, the cause can be seen from one aspect of the Japanese military's unique "culture": "In the Japanese military of that era, corporal punishment was routine practice. “Iron must be beaten while it’s hot; soldiers must be beaten while they’re fresh” was a saying among servicemen. “No strong soldiers,” went another, “are made without beatings.” For all Japanese soldiers, especially low-ranking ones, beating was inescapable, often a daily event." (page 194)

Since Japanese soldiers themselves routinely experienced being beaten, their resentment/anger was thereafter directed at the POWs.

This writer, Morikawa, at the time of reading this section of the book, recalled reading the war novel: "The Human Condition", by Junpei Gomikawa, which described the irrational/unreasonable aspects of the army, and I found myself nodding in agreement with what was written about the reality/true nature of the Japanese military in UNBROKEN.

-- JUSTIFICATION OF THE A-BOMBINGS

However, I cannot accept the logic deployed by the book that: since POWs were abused/treated cruelly, therefore, the large-scale bombings of Tokyo and other cities, and the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unavoidable.

For example, the book tells of a newly-released POW, right after the end of the war, travelling by train through central Hiroshima after the dropping of the a-bomb, and looking at the scene he said:

“Nothing! It was beautiful.”

The American POW felt it was due to the A-bombings that he was able to meet/reach the end of the war, where he were released from captivity. So this is the deep emotion he had when he saw devastated nothingness of the central explosion area -- and to him it looked beautiful. The book records the ex-POW's comment using the following expression:

“I know it’s not right to say it was beautiful, because it really wasn’t. But I believed the end probably justified the means.” (p320)

-- IS JAPAN'S DIPLOMACY COPING/ABLE TO DEAL WITH THIS BESTSELLER?

The typical thinking/logic of America's conservative class can be seen in the assertion that the A-bombings were unavoidable actions, which were required to end the war. While UNBROKEN goes into great detail explaining the abuse of POWs by Japanese soldiers, it does not mention at all that hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by the A-bombings. The following passage from the book is written as if to say that, from the start, the Japanese government was really responsible for the victims of the A-bombings:

"That same night, B-29s showered leaflets over thirty-five Japanese cities, warning civilians of coming bombings and urging them to evacuate. The Japanese government ordered civilians to turn the leaflets in to authorities, forbade them from sharing the warnings with others, and arrested anyone with leaflets in their possession. Among the cities listed on the leaflets were Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (page 297)

To be honest, this writer, Morikawa, had no previous knowledge about the issue of how Japan handled/treated POWs during the Second World War. So, I had numerous confused/bewildered thoughts as I read UNBROKEN. I also have no ability to judge/verify the statistical information which was cited in the book.

Furthermore, what I cannot understand is why this book was published at this time -- and, beyond that, that fact of how it has become a top best-seller.

Japanese should take notice/be aware that such a book is selling well in America. I think it would be wise for Japan's MOFA to read and analyze the contents of UNBROKEN, and then develop a countermeasures plan as part of a diplomatic strategy to improve the image of Japan.

A POW views Unbroken

Fukuoka #17 Omuta

Lester Tenney, Past National Commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) has both read the book and seen the movie Unbroken. He is a survivor of the Bataan Death March, a Hellship, and Fukuoka #17 Omuta where he was a slave coal miner for Mitsui. Below is his reaction.

The movie Unbroken will be seen in Japan only when the Japanese in authority decides not to rewrite history.  Forgetting about one's past is like a narcotic: it dulls the senses and relieves the pain of knowing you’ve committed a wrong.

The book, and ultimately the movie Unbroken, once again verifies that society cannot escape history. The reality of what happened remains with us in the present and follows us into the future. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be un-lived, but when faced with courage, the past need not be lived that way again.

I have often been asked about the apology given to us by the Japanese government in 2009. I reply that apologies are very important. That is, if they are honest and sincere. A meaningless apology, so often expressed, is like a second insult. I do believe the apology given by Japan's Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki and the one given to the POW’s in 2010 by the Minister of Foreign Affairs was sincere and I appreciated the words and the desire to be recorded.

We POWs, however, have been hurt not just by Imperial Japanese soldiers, but also by employees of those Japanese businesses that used and abused us as POWs. We were slave laborers for the likes of Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Hitachi, Sumitomo, and Nippon Sharyo. And we want to be healed. And that can be done only with a sincere apology.

The movie Unbroken is bringing forward our story of survival and search for justice and truth.  The abuse and enslavement of American and Allied POWs did happen. If honor is important to today's Japanese, then the full and truthful story must be brought to a public forum. It can no longer be hidden.

NHK, Japan's National Broadcasting Company (similar to our PBS) called me and wanted to take me to see the movie. A producer, cameraman, and writer came to my home on December 27th and took my wife and me to a screening of Unbroken. They interviewed me right outside the theater, within minutes after we left the show. 

To be sure, I watched the movie with different reasons than most other movie-goers. My objective was to see whether the movie honestly portrayed being a POW of Japan. I told the NHK journalists that I expected a lot from the film. Thus, my first impressions, on a scale of 1 to 10, I gave the overall picture a 4; the screenwriting a 6, the acting an 8; and the directing a 3.

I found it strange that of all the POWs only one was picked out regularly to be beaten or tortured and that there was only one abusive guard (the Bird). That was not the way it was in the camp that I was in. Arbitrary and excessive punishments to all were the rule. Guards were mean, petty, capricious, and psychotic. And the war crimes records for the camps in which Mr. Zamperini was held also noted the widespread abuse. I also found odd the absence of bugs, vermin, and the deathly ill. And never was it clear how little the POWs were fed, clothed, housed, or given medical care.

When the NHK team said goodbye, I said to them that I was surprised by the interest in the movie  and book as I had not found many people curious about the history of the POWs. I wondered how many viewers understood the enormity of a near 40% death rate among the Americans held in Japanese POW camps. The movie did not capture the degradation of spirit and body that took place. Everyday was a desperate effort to survive for every prisoner, not just one.

In parting, I told the Japanese

Maybe now you can see why we POWs say 'dying is easy; it's the living that’s hard'. We survivors cannot give you any hard facts as to why we survived and others died. We keep asking ourselves, 'why me God, why me Why did I survive?' And it is this burden that has proved worse than all the abuse and torture inflicted upon us by the countless "Birds" that populated the camps. The Bird was not unusual, however, surviving was and our goal, despite all The Birds was survival.

Although the movie was not all that I wanted or expected, it does succeed in ensuring that the struggle for survival endured by all American POWs of Japan is unforgotten.

Louis Zamperini an inspiration in life and death

Louis Zamperini, Olympian and former POW of Japan who died in July 2014, remained the Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses 126th Rose Parade presented by the Japanese company Honda. The theme was inspiring stories.

"Unbroken" is an opportunity for truth telling and reconciliaiton

'Unbroken': Let Japanese audience see Jolie film, learn truth about POW treatment
By Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Kinue Tokudome

First Published by Fox News on December 29, 2014

On most Mondays, we are fed the mildly diverting and largely irrelevant data about weekend box office grosses. Not this Monday. This week we are left to ponder the gross excesses of censors — three to be exact.

First there was the assertion of a scary cyberbullying attack by North Korea seeking to abort the launch of a comedy about a fictional attempt to off Pyongyang’s awful leader. While there’s now skepticism about North Korea’s role, what’s not in dispute is that there is nothing funny about life in North Korea. Tragically, the long-suffering people there, including hidden Christians, did not wake up on Dec. 25 to find regime change gift-wrapped under illegal Christmas trees.

Next came the thought police in Casablanca and Cairo, who have rated the epic remake of the biblical “Exodus” “Z” for Zionist. Apparently, they are less disturbed that God was relegated to a minor supporting role in the narrative than they are that muscular “white guys” dominate the screen and that the movie has the audacity to suggest that Hebrew slave labor contributed to ancient Egypt’s unique skyline. All this from two of the most “moderate” Arab societies.

But these two incidents, both generated in tightly controlled societies, pale in comparison to the decision of a leading studio to stop the release of a true story in a sister democracy.

On Christmas Day, Universal Pictures released Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken" — which depicts the remarkable life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who became a prisoner of war of the Japanese — all over the world … except in Japan.

The Los Angeles Times reported that “Unbroken,” with its unflinching depiction of the brutality of Japanese POW camps during World War II, would have encountered considerable resistance there.

Already millions of viewers — most of them born long after the Second World War — have been inspired by Zamperini’s sheer determination to survive unimaginable brutality at the hands of the Japanese; his struggle with post-war PTSD; and his finally being able to forgive his former tormentors. People in the very country where these events took place are now robbed of the opportunity to learn from their nation's past.

Why did Universal feel compelled to make this draconian move? Japan is no North Korea. She is one of the United States’ closest allies, with almost 70 years of friendship based on shared values of democracy and human rights. Shouldn’t the Japanese people be trusted to face their past, even their history’s darkest chapters like POW abuse?

One of us recently attended the signing at the State Department of a joint agreement between France and the U.S. that calls for France to provide $60 million in compensation to Holocaust survivors it deported to Nazi concentration camps. But it was not only about money. Speaking for France, Patrizianna Sparacino-Thiellay, the ambassador-at-large for human rights in charge of the Holocaust, declared, “This agreement is a further contribution to recognizing France’s commitment to face up to its historic responsibilities.”

The Japanese people deserve this kind of commitment from their leaders, not the overwhelming denial of history that led to the “Unbroken” blackout.

It took until 2009, when then Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki, on behalf of his government, apologized to former American POWs at their last national reunion, for the real reconciliation to finally start. Because of the ambassador’s commitment to improving U.S.-Japan relations and his willingness to work closely with Dr. Lester Tenney, a survivor of the Bataan Death March and of forced labor in a Japanese coal mine, a POW invitation program to promote reconciliation funded by the Japanese government started in 2010.

Former POWs in their late 80s and 90s who went to Japan were finally able to feel peace and a sense of closure as they visited the places where they had endured hard labor and were warmly welcomed by today’s Japanese. U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy praised this program. The positive publicity generated by the surviving ex-POWs’ yearly visit has been helping younger Japanese to learn about what happened to POWs in their country — in most cases, for the first time.

One group that must have welcomed the “Unbroken” cancellation was the very Japanese companies that enslaved American POWs. Of some 12,000 Americans who were sent to Japan after being captured on the battlefield, 1,115 died while being forced to work for these companies. Their refusal to honor the request of aging ex-POWs who insist “We survivors want our honor returned; we want you to apologize” is not worthy of Asia's leading democracy.

In contrast, France's state-owned railway company, SNCF, whose trains were used to deport Jews from France to Auschwitz, has expressed regret for those actions, opened its WWII archives to historians and increased its financial commitment to Holocaust education in France, Israel and the U.S.

In 2015, some Japanese companies that used and abused American POWs will try to sell their high-speed rail technology to the U.S., as will SNCF. These Japanese companies should emulate their French competitor by issuing an apology and committing themselves to educate the future generation on the history of American POWs of the Japanese. Showing “Unbroken” across Japan can be one way to show such a commitment, as well as reassuring her neighbors on both sides of the Pacific that the mindset that led Japan into World War II is a thing of the past, not an inspiration for the future.

Sign Petition to Japan - SHOW UNBROKEN

SIGN THIS PETITION

Petitioning The Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C.

This petition will be delivered to:

The Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C.

Stop the ban on Angelina Jolie's movie, Unbroken, 

in Japan

Here is our open letter to filmmaker Angelina Jolie in which we, The Indo Project initiate a counter petition as an answer to the Petition started in Japan to ban Angelina Jolie's movie UNBROKEN. We encourage people to sign to stop the continued effort of Japan to deny and censor its war record and crimes. 

Open Letter to Angelina Jolie,

Prior to the release of your movie Unbroken which depicts, among other things, the circumstances of a Japanese POW camp, the news broke that your movie might be banned from being distributed and screened in Japan. Japanese nationalists have already collected 8,000 signatures in a petition to ban the movie, and Hiromichi Moteki of the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact has questioned the movie’s credibility and called the film immoral, racist and demonic.

We at The Indo Project question Mr. Moteki’s sources and hope he’s aware of the list of the many war crimes the Japanese committed in the period 1937-1945. Has he ever read up on the Nanking Massacre and the other massacres, the building of the Burma railway line or the Bataan Death March? Official Japanese war crimes include torture (including water boarding), use of chemical weapons, forced prostitution (comfort women) and forced labor (romusha). WWII statistics of casualties are tricky and controversial but if we have to mention one number, Mr Moteki can check the US Navy Department Library for himself. While the total number of American service men (93,941) in German POW camps experienced a 1% death rate, US service men (27,465) interned in Japan and Southeast Asia, had a 38-40% mortality rate.

We at The Indo Project all had relatives in Japanese internment camps and life was exceedingly harsh: starvation, excruciatingly long train rides in box cars without food or water, withholding of food and medication, forced labor, torture, death marches— we have heard it all in our families. A denial of the war crimes represented in the movie is a denial of the atrocities perpetrated against our family members who rest in war cemeteries and mass graves all over Indonesia, killed, directly or indirectly, by the Japanese army.

The war in Asia has been underrepresented in movies and books, and sadly, generations of Japanese schoolchildren still may not know what their grandfathers did in the war as Japan’s role in WWII has been denied and pushed under the rug for generations. This denial has now been compounded by name calling, which, in our view, is compelling testimony of how nervous some Japanese factions are about being found out in a movie that shows the excessive cruelty of some Japanese officers. By banning the movie in Japan, the Japanese miss yet another opportunity of educating their children about the Japanese war record.

We applaud you, Mrs. Jolie, for pointing your cameras at the war experience in Asia. By doing so, you honor our grandparents and fathers and mothers who perished in Japanese internment camps and prisons. Your hero in the movie, Louis Zamperini, survived to tell his tale to Laura Hillenbrand and you, and in the telling of his story, it has become our story too.

We want to endorse your movie by starting a counter petition, signed by the survivors (POW’s, civilian internees of the Japanese camps) descendants and other family members or friends of those who could not sign for themselves because they died under the Japanese regime. We petition Japan to stop all forms of censorship and show the movie, and we commit to supporting the movie by taking family and friends to see it together.

Inez Hollander Lake, Ph.D.
On behalf of The Indo Project

SIGN PETITION HERE

Waiting for Unbroken

On Tuesday, December 9th, NBC Dateline featured a preview of the movie Unbroken about an American Olympian who became a POW of Japan. The TV program focuses on Angelina Jolie the director. The American premiere will be December 15 in Hollywood. There is still time to buy the book by Laura Hillenbrand. The movie will be released throughout the US on Christmas Day.

Olympian, Airman, POW, Inspiration

On July 3rd, Louis Zamperini died. He had faced death many times as a young man. And defied the "odds" many more. As a POW of Japan he was beaten, starved, degraded, experimented upon, and dehumanized. It was with God's grace that he survived to be 97.

On this coming Christmas Day, the triumph and inspiration of his life will be released as a movie that is based on the still-best seller Unbroken. See below for the just released "unofficial" trailer.

It is hoped that the movie will inspire today's Japanese corporations that used and abused the POWs they requested from Imperial Japan's Army Ministry to finally acknowledge how they treated POWs and to offer an apology. Zamperini, as noted in the essay honoring him below, was tormented by Japanese corporate employees as much as by soldiers.

All the companies that allowed their employees to abuse Zamperini, such as the infamous Bird, to abuse their POW slave laborers still exist: Nippon Express, ShinEtsu Chemical, and Nippon Steel and Sumikin Stainless Corp. (NSSC, formerly Nippon Stainless). Although Bird was a military POW guard, his job was to ensure discipline for the company that used the camp's slave labor. It is likely that he was, like many guards and camp employees, paid by the company. As it was, the companies had already paid the War Ministry for the "white slaves" as they were called.

Farewell to America’s ‘Unbroken’ Hero
The Weekly Standard, July 9, 2014

by Dennis P. Halpin (A former Peace Corps volunteer in Korea and a former adviser on Asian affairs to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He is a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS (Johns Hopkins) and a consultant to the Poblete Analysis Group)

America, just before its Fourth of July birthday, lost one of the greatest of the generation that guided it through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Louis Zamperini was 97, so this was not entirely surprising. Zamperini, the American who couldn’t be broken by Nazis in Berlin or sadistic guards in POW camps in Japan, had been designated to be the grand marshal of the 2015 Tournament of Roses parade. My grandfather, a World War I veteran, used to say “give me my roses while I’m alive.” Unfortunately, the Rose Parade organizing committee waited too long. (Zamperini will still be honored posthumously as grand marshal next New Year’s Day.)

“Lucky Louie,” as he called himself, was a rambunctious kid from an immigrant family, who learned to use his fists after being picked on in school for speaking the broken English he learned from his Italian father. He referred to himself in his memoirs as “a rebel with a chip on his shoulder,” sort of like one of those Hollywood “Little Rascals” for which his prewar generation was famous. After several run-ins with the Torrance, Calif., police and the local parish priest, Louie’s older brother Pete introduced him to athletic running as a means of focusing his energy. Louie began competing in track in what he referred to in his book Devil at My Heels as “the first wise decision of my life.”

The rest is history. The track record of “the Torrance Tornado” took him all the way to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and a handshake with Hitler himself. Louie did not medal—he said he was saving that for the anticipated 1940 Tokyo Olympics. (Zamperini, of course, made it to Japan, but only as a POW slave laborer.)

But Zamperini had run an astonishing 56 seconds in the final quarter mile of the 5,000 meter event in Berlin so the Fuehrer wanted to meet him. Goebbels brought Zamperini to Hitler who observed, “you’re the boy with the fast finish.” Louie said the American athletes in 1936 considered Hitler “only as a dangerous clown.”

Louie still had some of his rambunctious qualities because, on a tour of Berlin with a teammate, he decided that he wanted a swastika souvenir when they stopped in front of the Reich Chancellery to take photos. As they stood there Hitler again appeared with a contingent of armed guards and went inside. After the building’s guards had goose-stepped past, Louis made a run for the building, climbed a flag pole and grabbed a Nazi banner. The guards saw Zamperini as he attempted to make his escape, shouted “halt” and started firing. Louie wisely stopped and was handcuffed. However, upon seeing his Olympic uniform and hearing that he had wanted the swastika as a souvenir, the German commandant of the building let “Lucky Louie” keep the banner.

It was in the Pacific Theater where Louis Zamperini made his name as a war hero. Anticipating America’s entry into the war, he enlisted in the army in September 1941. He went to Officers Candidate and bombardier school in Midland, Texas. In October 1942 he was assigned as an Army Air Corps second lieutenant to Hickam Field in Honolulu with the B24 bombing unit of the Forty-second Squadron. His first raid took place on Christmas Eve, 1942, the target was Japanese-occupied Wake Island.

On May 26, 1943, in an aircraft dubbed the Green Hornet, which Zamperini noted “couldn’t fly straight,” he and his fellow crew members crash landed in the Pacific. His harrowing 47 days on the high seas, including near starvation (his weight dropped to 67 pounds), thirst, encounters with sharks, killing and eating raw sea birds, and the death at sea of a fellow crew member, are graphically recorded in Laura Hillenbrand’s best-selling Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption. That story will also be retold in a movie directed by Angelina Jolie which is to be released in December.

Zamperini and another crewmember, Second Lieutenant Russell Phillips, were captured by the Japanese and taken first to the island of Kwajalein and then to mainland Japan as POWs. His parents received a letter from President Franklin Roosevelt informing them that their son had “died in the service of his country” and that “he stands in the unbroken line of patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live.” His mother, however, never gave up hope that he was alive.

Louis Zamperini’s treatment as a brutalized prisoner of war continues to have relevance today because of the ongoing debate in Asia over Japan’s war crimes. Article 2 of the 1929 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War reads: “They must at all times be humanly treated and protected, particularly against acts of violence, insults and public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against them are prohibited.” The death rates of American POWs held by Nazi Germany and Japan during the Second World War provide a stark contrast. Statistics indicate that only 1,121 of 93,941 U.S. POWs died in Nazi internment camps (a rate of about 1.1 percent) while 13,851 of 36,260 POWs died while in Imperial Japanese custody (a rate of 38.2 percent.) This is evidence not only of abuse and brutality but of clear violations of the Geneva Convention by Imperial Japanese authorities.

Zamperini became aware of these violations from his first days of captivity on Kwajalein. A native islander, who worked for the Japanese, approached him in his cell because of his Olympic notoriety. This person informed him that the nine U.S. Marines who had left messages scrawled in Zamperini’s cell had been summarily executed, “decapitated with a samurai sword.” Zamperini described how his guards taunted him and his crewmate: “they jabbed us with sticks, spit on us, tossed hot tea in our faces. Sometimes they made us sing and dance—as if we could—for their amusement.” He also observed Comfort Women, the current focus of so much historic controversy, while imprisoned on Kwajalein. In his memoirs, he recorded: “on the way I passed two somber young girls, very out of place in a combat zone. They shuffled and stared at the ground.”

Later, on the prison ship transporting him to mainland Japan, guards examined Zamperini’s wallet. There they discovered a Stars and Stripes newspaper clipping regarding his Olympic background and his participation in the Wake Island raid. They were so angered that they broke his nose. He was transferred to a series of POW camps where he spent the next two years as a slave laborer. “Brutal beatings, with fist or club, were the daily rule,” he recorded.

Zamperini made a mental note of guards and officials who were especially brutal and sadistic in their treatment of the POWs. At Camp Ofuna, in the foothills near Yokohama [Kamakura], there was a medic named Kitamura, nicknamed “the Quack,” who sadistically beat POW Marine Bill Harris almost to death for concealing a map of Allied military advances. There was James Sasaki, who had attended USC with Louis Zamperini, undercover as a Japanese spy, and then returned to Japan to become the head interrogator for the prison camp system. Above all, there was Sergeant Matsuhiro Watanabe, who was assigned to Camp Omori, where Louis was transferred, and was nicknamed “the Bird.” Zamperini described him as “deranged, brutal beyond belief.” He took a personal dislike to “Lucky Louie” and tormented him both verbally and with great physical brutality.

“The Bird” disappeared near the war’s end and hid in the mountains of Japan for seven or eight years, until a general amnesty, to escape trial as a war criminal (Watanabe had been classified as a class-A war criminal, number 23 of the top 40 most wanted men, for his crimes against humanity.) When Louis returned to Japan in1998 to carry the torch for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, near the site of his final internment camp, he asked to meet with Watanabe, who had been located by journalists. Louis wanted closure and reconciliation but “the Bird,” in a final act of degradation, refused to meet with him. (Decades earlier, after hearing Reverend Billy Graham preach, Louie had met some of his other captors in Japan and had forgiven them all.)

At that last internment facility, Camp 4-B [Naoestu], near Nagano, where Louis Zamperini would return over a half century later, Louis and his fellow POWs were forced to engage in slave labor for Japanese corporations: “every day, gangs marched to the nearby steel mill, train yard and port. Although we had shoes, most of us walked the two miles to work barefoot in the March snow and ice, our feet wrapped in rags, because the Bird had a rule: whoever had dirty shoes got beaten and had to lick them clean.”

Two of the companies for which Louie and his fellow prisoners were forced to labor, Shinetsu Chemical and Nippon Stainless [NSSC], continue to exist today. A number of these corporations which used slave labor also continue to do business in the United States. As former POW Edward Jackfert pointed out in a recent article in the National Interest, Sumitomo, Kawasaki, and Mitsui, all of which used POW slave labor in their wartime factories, have sold rail cars which run on Virginia’s VRE rail line. Yet, unlike German corporations, which used slave labor, these corporations have never offered an apology to our old soldiers who are slowly fading away.

In 2000, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed to a “multi-million pound compensation package” for former British prisoners of war in Japan in recognition of their “appalling” experiences—ex gratia payments from the UK government. As a result of Blair’s example, legislation was introduced in Congress which instead sought direct compensation for America’s POWs from Japanese corporations rather than from the U.S. taxpayer—the “Justice for the U.S. POWs Act of 2001”—with bipartisan sponsorship from two legislators from Louis Zamperini’s home state of California, Dana Rohrabacher and Mike Honda.

The bill was designed “to preserve certain actions in Federal court brought by members of the United States Armed Forces held as prisoners of war by Japan during World War II against Japanese nationals seeking compensation for mistreatment or failure to pay wages in connection with labor performed in Japan to the benefit of the Japanese nationals.” The legal bureau of the State Department, however, supported the Japanese government’s position that all such claims were settled by the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, so the proposed legislation got nowhere. There has thus been no formal U.S. recognition of the debt owed our POW slave laborers.

Former Ambassador of Japan to the United States, Ichiro Fujisaki, did take an important step in offering his government’s first official apology in 2009 to survivors of the Bataan Death March at their organization’s final national convention in San Antonio, Texas. Ambassador Fujisaki stated, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News, "As former prime ministers of Japan have repeatedly stated: The Japanese people should bear in mind that we must look into the past to learn from the lessons of history. We extend a heartfelt apology for our country having caused tremendous damage and suffering to many people, including prisoners of war, those who have undergone tragic experiences in the Bataan Peninsula, in Corregidor Island in the Philippines and other places.” [NB: No official  text of this speech has ever been issued. The exact apology words used in Japanese are unknown.]

Perhaps the passing of the “Unbroken” Louis Zamperini will be an occasion for Japanese corporations involved in slave labor to join in extending their apologies to the dwindling number of America’s World War II POW veterans. Is saying sorry so hard? “Lucky Louie” certainly wouldn’t think so.

Remembering Pfc. Arthur A. Klein, USMC

Our hero passed yesterday evening at 4:10.

Thus read the email announcing Pfc. Arthur A. Klein, Wake Island Detachment, 1st Defense Battalion, U.S. Marine Corp, 91, death on Monday, April 16th in Billings, Montana.

He was indeed a hero. Little in neither his obituary in the Billings Gazette nor the tribute given him by U.S. Senator John Testor (D-MT) in the Congressional Record conveys just how much.

Pfc. Klein was one of 449 Marines who fought in one of the first battles of World War II. Although out-gunned, out-manned, and out-supplied, the Marines, with a handful of civilian contractors who were on Wake to fortify the island and Pan American Airways Chamorro flight attendants, held Wake Island in the Pacific. For over two weeks, December 8 to 22, 1941, these men did the impossible. They stopped an invading Japanese armada.

According to historian Gregory Urwin, author of Victory in Defeat: The Wake Island Defenders in Captivity, the Wake Island Marines exhibited “a heroism that inspired millions of their countrymen, they defended their tiny outpost for sixteen days, beating off seventeen air raids and an amphibious landing attempt.” Their fierce defense of the tiny atoll is said to be the only time in military history that an amphibious assault was successfully repelled.
 

Incredibly, only 46 Marines, three sailors, and 75 civilians died in Wake’s defense. The 1,593 Wake Islanders still alive at the time of the surrender, which included 35 Chamorros and 403 Marines, became prisoners of war of Imperial Japan.  Japanese losses, on the other hand, easily topped 900 dead, plus two destroyers, two patrol boats, one submarine, and 21 aircraft.

In January 1942, the majority of Wake’s POWs (1,187 in all) including Art were herded onto a former Japanese ocean liner, the Nitta Maru, and sailed first to Yokohama and eventually to Shanghai. Others were shipped to Japan later, leaving 98 civilians on Wake to work as slave laborers. The Japanese massacred these men on October 7, 1944.

Nitta Maru

The Nitta Maru was a Hellship. It was like many others, built and operated by NYK Lines (Mitsubishi) and unmarked as carrying POWs. Japanese ship operators bid on and profited from transport contracts with Japan's military. One thousand starving, dehydrated, sick men crammed into her dark, airless hold, which at best was only large enough for 400. Art remembers they “were so crowded that we could not even sit or lie down.” The smell of death and waste hung in the air.

After departing Yokohama, the Japanese took five men topside as retribution for the hundreds of their comrades who had fallen to the defenders of Wake. Art may have listened as five fellow Marines (see Master Technical Sergeant Earl Raymond Hannum and Technical Sergeant Vincent Bailey) were tortured and clumsily beheaded. Their torsos were mutilated with bayonets and thrown overboard. These men are among the 3,000 WWII Marines whose bodies have never been recovered.

  

Tsumori 

In China, Art was taken first to the Shanghai War Prisoners Camp (Kiangwan ).Then he was transferred to Woosung POW Camp also in Shanghai. Although neither camp was humanitarian or comfortable, Art said that it was better than any he had heard about and “it was certainly far better than anythat we had in Japan.” For awhile, the expat community in Shanghai was allowed to provide food and clothing to the POWs. Labor was building a mountain-like firing range that Art called Fujiyama [Mt. Fuji].

It is unclear when Art was sent to Japan. It is likely that he was among the maybe 400 POWs shipped from Shanghai in August 1943 to Tsumori POW Camp 13-B near Osaka. The camp was operated to provide slave labor for the Fujinagata Shipbuilding &Engineering Co., Ltd. Founded in the 17th Century, Fujinagata was shipyard and railroad car manufacturer in Osaka. Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding acquired the company in the 1960s.

The book ConductUnder Fire describes the five barracks at Tsumori as wooden structures 150 to 200 ft long and 30 to 40 ft wide. Three times a day the POWs received rice or a mixture of barley and millet. Greens and root vegetables were added for the evening meal.

Art first slaved as a stevedore hauling rocks and unloading pig iron. He was eventually moved inside to work as a welder. He was grateful for this, as it was warm. The winter of 1943-44 was very cold with temperatures ranging between 32 and 45 degrees. The winter of 1944-45 was the coldest in 50 years. His clothing and bedding was cotton and fuel to heat the barracks was always minimal. That meant only enough to fuel small fires in the barracks for a few hours-if any fuel at all. Body heat was what kept the POWs warm at night as buddies wrapped themselves together in the bedding they had.
 

About Naoestu

American firebombing raids prompted the Japanese to abandon Tsumori on May 15, 1945. The surviving Wake Islanders and other POWs were sent to Tokyo 4-B Naoetsu to serve as slave laborers for ShinetsuChemical and NipponStainless [both companies still exist with their original names]. This POW camp was considered the worst and most notorious in Japan, More guards (15) were tried and executed (8) than any other POW Camp on the mainland.

At this camp, Art witnessed the many beatings and humiliations of Airman and Olympian Louis Zamperini. The horror of the capricious brutality by the Japanese guards is immortalized in the bestselling book Unbroken. Art’s testimony for the Yokohama Class B and C War Crimes Trials, as footnoted in the book, helped indict a number of the more sadistic camp guards. 

Naoetsu was liberated in September 1945 and Art, barely 85 pounds, returned to the U.S. to spend months in a military hospital recovering from the trauma, beatings, illnesses, and malnutrition. He had survived nearly four years of the worst that Imperial Japan could deliver.

As a Marine it is said he had an advantage. U.S. Marines, according Professor Urwin, had the discipline and esprit de corps that helped them survive the merciless POW camps. Eighteen Wake Island Marines died as prisoners, fixing that group's death rate at 4.46 percent, whereas the overall death rate for American POWs of Japan was nearly 40 percent.

Naoetsu Peace Park

In 1995, the citizens of Naoetsu and families of former POWs dediated the Naoetsu Peace Memorial Park & Museum on the site of the former Naoetsu POW camp. It is one of the very few memorials in Japan to acknowledge the suffering of Japan's victims and Japanese responsibility.

After being a Marine and POW of Japan, there were few challenges that Art could not overcome. Staying optimistic is what Art attributed to his longevity. The next challenge is for us, Americans and Japanese, to remember him and understand the important role he played in American history. Rarely does his name appear in camp rosters, histories, or memoirs. Hopefully, this will now change. He helps us fill in many blanks in the American experience with Japan.